This book is a gentle but rigorous introduction to Formal Logic. It is intended primarily for use at the college level. However, it can also be used for advanced secondary school students, and it can be used at the start of graduate school for those who have not yet seen the material.

The approach to teaching logic used here emerged from more than 20 years of teaching logic to students at Stanford University and from teaching logic to tens of thousands of others via online courses on the World Wide Web. The approach differs from that taken by other books in logic in two essential ways, one having to do with content, the other with form.

Like many other books on logic, this one covers logical syntax and semantics and proof theory plus induction. However, unlike other books, this book begins with Herbrand semantics rather than the more traditional Tarskian semantics. This approach makes the material considerably easier for students to understand and leaves them with a deeper understanding of what logic is all about.

In addition to this text, there are online exercises (with automated grading), online logic tools and applications, online videos of lectures, and an online forum for discussion. They are available at http://intrologic.stanford.edu/

About the Author(s)

Michael Genesereth, Stanford UniversityMichael Genesereth is an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. He received his Sc.B. in Physics from M.I.T. and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. He is best known for his research on Computational Logic and its applications. He has been teaching Logic to Stanford students and others for more than 20 years. He is the current director of the Logic Group at Stanford and founder and research director of CodeX (The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics).

Eric J. Kao, VMware, Inc.Eric J. Kao is a member of technical staff at VMware, Inc. He received his B.Math in Pure Mathematics from the University of Waterloo and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. His work centers on Computational Logic and its applications in cloud computing, cybersecurity, and data management. He currently leads OpenStack Congress, a leading open-source collaboration for declarative cloud management. He is passionate about education and making technical subjects more accessible. In his free time, he tutors and mentors high school students in East Palo Alto.